Quotes from John Bunyan (Author of The Pilgrim's Progress)

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”

“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. ”

“What God says is best, though all the men in the world are against it.”

“Prayer will make a man cease from sin, and sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.”

“He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find Him the rest of the day.”

“Dark clouds bring living waters, where bright skies bring none.”

“One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.”

“I will stay in prison till the moss grows on my eyelids rather than disobey God.”

“Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan.”

Brooksie (by Joe Posnanski)

Note: Brooks Robinson died today. I recall like it was yesterday watching him scoop up ball after ball in the 1970 World Series which I watched on our little black/white TV in the kitchen. He became one of my top 5 favorite ball players of all time. He was born in Little Rock and visited there on a regular basis, so when I moved to Arkansas in 1996 that was one of my goals, to meet the greatest third baseman who ever lived. That never happened but for all kind of other reasons that run together in my brain, I'm really sad that he no longer exists on the same planet as the rest of us humans. 

Here is what a professional writer, Joe Posnanski,  had to say on this subject:

"Dad’s favorite ballplayer was born left-handed. Think about that for a minute: Brooks Robinson, the best who ever played the hot corner, was born with the one physical quality that should have prevented him from ever playing third base. All his life he would do everything else left-handed — he shot a rifle lefty, he played tennis and ping pong lefty, he signed autographs left-handed.

When Davey Johnson saw his hero sign an autograph left-handed, he decided to try writing left-handed too, hoping it would make him into the same sort of heavenly defender.

It did not. But how could it?

God Is Near

"The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you." 2 Chronicles 15:2b

"I know the LORD is always with me. I will not be shaken, for He is right beside me." Psalm 16:8 (NLT)

Here's a crazy question . . . 

How do these two verses belong in the same Bible?

24 Things I Miss

Twenty four things I miss about Chattanooga in no particular order:

1. Lookout games at Engel Stadium (So much history!)

2. Luther (The Voice of Chattanooga)

3. Walking the marble floors of the gigantic (or so it seemed at the time) American National Bank downtown location

4. Dr. Sages (At the top of the Holiday Inn downtown) a great place to listen to live music!

5. Town and Country Steak House (Located downtown by the river) great food and memories!

Does God Want Us To Be Happy?

This week's article is from a acquaintance of mine that I briefly knew when I worked in Rome, Ga. His name is Jonathan Huggins Huggins and he is the college chaplain at Berry College in Rome, GA. 

"Everyone wants to be happy.  At least, that seems to be the case. Even when people do things that will ultimately make them miserable, one could argue that they are still trying to make themselves happy. The problem is, we often look for happiness in all the wrong places (Isaiah 55:2, Jer. 2:13). But does God even care about our happiness? I mean, is it really that important? Is it just a nice additional quality that one might be lucky enough to experience if you have the right personality or set of circumstances? Or is happiness essential to life, and therefore essential to life with God? Is happiness a constitutive aspect of Christian faith and living?

The History Of Engel Stadium

In 1929, while the country was in the throes of the Great Depression, entrepreneur extraordinaire Joe Engel came to Chattanooga with a cash offer in his hand for Chattanooga’s minor league baseball team. Engel believed in baseball, and he believed in Chattanooga. Acting as an emissary for Clark Griffith, owner of the major league Washington Senators, he purchased the Lookouts from Sammy Strang Nicklin, a Chattanooga-born big leaguer who had helped the New York Giants win the World Series in 1905.

On that same trip, Engel also brought $150,000 for the purpose of building a gleaming new ballpark to replace Andrews Field, which had acted as the Lookouts’ home field since 1911. The new stadium was completed the next year.

Into the 1930s and beyond, Engel promoted the Lookouts tirelessly, and through his influence, a baseball game at Engel Stadium became more than balls, strikes, outs, and runs. It was a spectacle.